As part of the race organizing committee, my job is to set up the course with cones and markings, and have our athletes out there directing runners and cheering them on. As Chuck and I quickly scanned the course to make sure everyone was in place, we were met by a very unpleasant surprise: Construction (ongoing, always, forever, unceasing, constant, at Marist) near the front of the Lowell Thomas building. When I kindly told one of the workers that we had a couple hundred runners coming by in a few minutes, he shrugged and said there were five trucks' worth of cement coming, and Marist knew about it, and we're going ahead as planned. Hmmm. Cement trucks and road races don't, uh, mix. The head of security was notified, a truce was drawn, but just to be safe I stayed in the vicinity of LT so as to ensure none of our back-of-the-pack participants had any unwelcome encounters with 10-ton vehicles. I chatted it up with the worker guys, who were impressed with the top finishers but not so impressed with the walkers. "Hell, I walked from my truck to here this morning, what's the big deal?" I was in no mood to get into a dissertation on the benefits of road races; I was just happy the trucks stopped long enough for all 200-plus to get past safely.
Afterwards at the finish line, it was a steady stream of sweaty hugs from alumni runners -- some of whom had not been back to campus for years. As the race gets older and our program continues to age as well, the Red Fox Trot will always be a destination for our athletes. As I told many of them as they arrived in the morning, "welcome home."
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